Canalside Community Food

Where are you?
Warwickshire

Online at www.canalsidecommunityfood.org.uk

Size and type of farm
10 acres, horticultural

Established
2006

Legal structure
Community Benefit Society

Number of staff
Two growers at full-time, and two part time admin staff. Total of 3 FTE.

Annual turnover and average surplus (profit)
Gross income £89,260, with an anticipated surplus of £6,884 after wages.

Direct Sales Model
CSA veg box scheme.

Weekly box (or ‘share’) of fruit and vegetables for members, with people signing up for a full year. We have around 190 member households receiving produce that is distributed as 173 shares of the harvest (in 3 sizes). Most of our members live within a 10 mile radius of the farm and pick-up their produce from the farm. We don’t buy anything in, so all produce is local, seasonal and organic.

Why have you chosen this model and what are the main benefits?
Canalside prides itself on supplying produce in an ethical and environmentally sensitive manner at the same time as engaging both its members and the wider local community in land based activities and celebrations. Members can learn about the local farming calendar and seasonal production, enjoying food at its freshest and most nutritious as shares are harvested close to the time of pickup from the farm.

In addition to the production of vegetables and fruit Canalside is rooted in the local community. Members not only help to run the farm through the steering group but also voluntarily help with farm activities in regular work mornings and other tasks. We organise regular events centred around the growing seasons to celebrate the farming calendar. We engage with members and partners to provide learning opportunities for processing and preserving fresh produce and opportunities for horticultural therapy in partnership with the Willows. We also run a programme for local schools to visit the farm.

Canalside recently (2017) reformed as a Community Benefit Society (CBS) which allowed us to raise finances through a community share offer to buy the 10 acres of land we had previously been renting. The CBS has therefore given our members a chance to communally own the land which we farm and has provided an incentive for them to become even more engaged in both running the farm and participating in its activities.

Canalside engages its members in the production and distribution of local, seasonal and organic vegetables and fruit. Members share the risks and rewards of farming by subscribing for shares of the produce at the same time as participating in seasonal activities that support the work of the farm.

What are your essential tools/equipment/pieces of software?
• A small tractor is pretty essential, with various implements. Our head grower is a particular fan of spring tines.

• On the finances, having a proper accounts programme is very helpful – we use Money Manager which is a stand-alone programme and is fairly flexible for our needs.

• For general admin, we use OpenOffice / LibreOffice extensively, with various self-designed spreadsheets to manage the members’ database and a spreadsheet to manage the collection numbers and who’s collecting when. Mailchimp is our chosen system for mailing our membership. And Wordpress is our chosen website editing platform.

What are the key factors that helped with development?
We had support from a consultant advisor in the early days. This was invaluable as our growers had not been working as professional growers prior to the establishment of Canalside. We also had the generous use of glasshouses at a nearby facility for raising seedlings. Before we had enough surplus covered cropping space of our own this meant we could reduce our outgoings by raising plants from seed instead of buying in seedlings/young plants.

The ability to grow a wide range of vegetables that is ready for harvesting throughout the year is central to the success of our business. The first growers developed a cropping plan in collaboration with expert consultants. Over the years this has been refined and developed by each grower and after each growing season. Growers use a range of activities to develop their skills including self-directed study, peer conversations, farm visits, conferences and workshops. One grower has also undertaken an apprenticeship scheme (Soil Association Future Growers) which developed their skills and on-the-job knowledge.

Having good administration with time ear-marked for this makes a key contribution to the successful running of the scheme. Therefore communication skills, and a wide range of administrative skills including website maintenance, word processing and spreadsheet skills, social media and publicity are really important. The current administrator came to the role with many of these skills already well developed and has further developed them through self-teaching/self-directed study, and guidance from members and others in the wider community with specific skills.

What has been the impact of Covid-19 on your business and how did you adapt?
Covid-19 has not significantly affected our distribution or subscriber numbers. We extended our collection times to reduce the queueing caused by limiting the number of people in our collection space. We saw little difference in the number of people signing up to our waiting list or enquiring about becoming members - probably because the messaging on our website clearly stated that anyone joining the waiting list could expect to wait in excess of 6 months (no good for people wanting an immediate solution). This wait has been the case for the last 2 years as we’ve held a waiting list of 50+ households for most of that time.We did see an increase in people coming to work mornings, especially in the early months of lockdown when a lot of people were on furlough and options to get out and about were very limited. The growers worked hard to have a wide range of tasks spread out across the site for people to do in a physically distanced way, either in their household group or individually.We also saw an increase in people asking about becoming social members or coming to volunteer with us. Due to the significant increase in turnout of existing members, we made a decision not to take on any new social members/volunteers until things had quietened down again.